The Story of a Stroke (My Multimedia Project)

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I’ve been interning at The Capital Times this summer. Along with learning about online journalism, posting stories to the web, writing features for print, and generally helping out, I also spent a long time working on a multimedia project.

The project is an interactive timeline about the day of a stroke and accompanies a story about new devices that are expanding the possiblity that doctor’s can help or even save stroke victims.

Putting together the timeline was such a learning experience for me. I got to work with two different photographers, a videographer, and our health reporter, Shawn Doherty. It was different working with so many people, since I’m used to doing multimedia projects and reporting all on my own. It’s sometimes hard to get everyone involved on the same page, but it’s helpful to have extra brains when you’re out shooting.

One thing I especially loved was watching the way Shawn went about reporting the story and seeing how she is able to draw out people’s stories in an interview. I haven’t gotten to shadow reporters much, but it’s cool to see a little bit into their process.

I’m planning to post a longer list of my stories from the summer sometime next week, but I’m so excited about this one that I had to post about it right away. Enjoy!

Wow, your timeline is so impressive! Great work. It sounds like your internship has been an awesome experience for you. Lucky girl. I need to land an internship that will get me away from my mindless desk position in the library.

Yours was neat Lu, thanks for the link. I wish I could read Spanish so I could understand it

They’ve done a few other VuVox timelines for the paper, and a lot of them used the pictures like you did — putting them together into a mural, almost. So when I pitched the idea of a timeline, some people were skeptical because they weren’t thinking about using VuVox like I wanted to (with more separated pictures and stuff). It’s interesting to see all the different ways people use it.

It really has been. I’ve never worked in a newsroom with so many other veteran reporters, so every day is a learning experience for me. Once in awhile though, when deadlines are pressing or people won’t call me back, I sort of wish for a desk job at a library

For people going into journalism, getting some experience via freelancing or interning is a huge thing. Although, the way the economy is right now, I suspect having an internship is something that just about everyone should be thinking about — it makes you a much better job candidate.